Scott Hightower

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Scott Hightower (born August 4, 1952 in Lampasas, Texas) is an American poet and teacher. Hightower is the author of three books of poetry.

Hightower was the third child of a family that lived on a modest working ranch near Lometa, a small town in central Texas. Like many rural American families of that time, it was a family to be met by challenges. His father, Berley Hightower, was a cowboy/rancher. The first week of August, 1952, Joyce Blauvelt Hightower gave birth to her third child on a Monday. On Wednesday of the same week, she was diagnosed with polio.

Hightower earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin, his Master of Education from Juarez-Lincoln University in Austin (an affiliate of Antioch University), and his Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University.

His first two books, without the lament of victimhood, incorporate the loss of his brother to AIDS, his sister to breast cancer. There are also reflections of their mother's earlier bout with polio. The themes of spirit captured in matter are archetypal and poeticly compelling.

His third, Part of the Bargain, won the 2004 Hayden Carruth Award.

Hightower's reviews often appear in The Journal, Barrow Street, the Manhattan Review, and other national journals. He has taught writing at the Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York University (Gallatin School), Fordham University, and Drew University. He lives in New York City.